Not sure how long Qube wants to leave it before starting another competition up but I had a zany idea that could be interesting for the next one, if we don't go for a random theme. Thought I'd put it out there and see what people thought - if it's not been suggested before.

What about creating a remake or a sequel to a game that's already been created for one of the previous Syntax Bomb competitions? With the authors blessing this could be an interesting theme. There's been five of them and I think each of them has had at least five entries, so plenty of choice to pick from.

Is the original author allowed to sequel his/her own game? I would suggest no

No, no, no. Definitely more interesting if the game is covered by someone else.

You could maybe, for a future competition, have another theme where you sequel a game that you wrote yourself, but that would need some further thought as new people wouldn't have anything to go cover.

Not sure how long Qube wants to leave it before starting another competition

I'm pretty snowed under with work at the moment so unfortunately I don't have time to create / monitor the comps, let alone enter them

Probably best for now if those that are interested in another comp dream up a theme / rules / time scale etc. If you can sort out who's going to be in charge of the next comp then I can make that person(s) a moderator of the competition forum.

I am not against paint as long as I can use KolourPaint (which is an open source MS-Paint alternative for Linux). Most of the graphics of TinyPixelWars were made using KolourPaint (I used Inkscape for the title text and an other app for the QR code).

So is anyone keen on getting a new comp on the go? Even if there's no monetary awards up for grabs, maybe the winner could decide the next comp theme/rules?

My suggestion would be a retro arcade theme over a period of 6 weeks. If we get everyone's suggestions of theme and timescales together, say by Monday 20th, then take a vote. Do a count on Friday 24th and start the comp on Monday 27th?

I'm still keen to have another go - still disappointed I couldn't get the last one finished but doing something not so ambitious next time, for sure.

I like my original suggestion of doing a sequel of another game that's been entered previously but think maybe that should be for another time and a shorter competition just for the kudos, rather than financial gain, this time.

Something retro like maybe picking your favourite classic arcade game from the early 80's - or converting an Atari VCS game, maybe. Six weeks should be a good time allowance for something like that. Quite a few of the original games were done in that time frame and we have all the development advantages now.

Why limit to arcade? Not all of us favor this genre.Why retro? Not all of us want to limit themself to "retro" resolutions, colors, ...

I understand that limits lead to "more easily finished projects" but then all those "you need to have pixel perfect retro 320x200 and not more ..." rules will get pinned down and yeah - you end up with limiting your creative freedom.

While this is not feasible in a 6 weeks time frame I enjoy "evolutionary" games ... so not "level" based ones, but things you could play over and over and they will be different every game. So RTS games, economical simulations (toilet manager ;-)), ...If someone had an "AI bot fighting game" with some kind of "API" we could even have a "code a bot"-competition. So people use their beloved languages and just inform the "API" about the done decisions - and of course can use the API to fetch information.

I wish there was a genre / theme that everyone liked but that will never be the case

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Because graphics are so time consuming to produce and this is a time based competition - only so many weeks.

Creating media is very time consuming. Although I highly enjoy it ( but not very good at it ) writing a small 1.5 minute piece of music can take me 2+ days alone. The graphics for The Last Ginger Ninja and ExBiEn took me ages to do and building the maps was a loooooong hard slog. Coding decisions had to be made on the spot with literally no time to properly play test and recode if needed, well not for me anyway. So yeah, creating any media yourself is a huge drain on actual coding time so its good to try and limit some sides of the comp not to be a time drain for the shorter time based comps.

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Why retro? Not all of us want to limit themself to "retro"

Retro graphics are easier and faster to create and more people can create *something* whereas less people can do animated 3D stuff in the same time. I think that is why the older retro style is favoured. Also the whole retro style generally leads to simpler game mechanics.

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While this is not feasible in a 6 weeks time frame I enjoy "evolutionary" games ... so not "level" based ones, but things you could play over and over and they will be different every game. So RTS games, economical simulations (toilet manager ;-)), ...

I'm sure the creative types could come up with a game in six weeks that is not level based

To me gameplay and a consistent aesthetic are the most important factors for any game. As most have said, spending weeks on the media has a major impact on coding the actual game. I think limiting resolution and colours actually increased my creativity. Also, keeping to a simpler type of gameplay means any AI doesn't require months of balancing and tweaking.

How about using the 6 categories used in the mixed genre comp (retro/strategy/puzzle/endless/open world/arcade) but you can use any 2? Maybe get Qube to re-run the randomiser to pick another 6 or even 8 .... as long as retro and arcade are in there